When Imagine This opened on the West End in November 2008, critics were scathing in their assessments of the new musical. Variety’s David Benedict described it as “schematic and predictable,” The Globe and Mail’s Elizabeth Renzetti called it the “feel bad” choice of the season, and The Telegraph’s Charles Spencer stated it was a “manipulative and morally dubious show.”

Imagine then my surprise when I sat down to watch the DVD and discovered a poignant, and powerfully performed, epic musical.

​The musical centers on a Jewish acting troupe, headed by Daniel (Peter Polycarpou), as they are interned in the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. In an attempt to carry on with life as before, despite nothing being as it was, the troupe set about staging a musical. The show-within-a-show is a musical about Masada, where over 900 Jewish people resisted Roman occupation by committing mass suicide. Daniel announces that the performance has been sanctioned by the Nazis, because “'It's got singing, dancing and all the Jews die in the end’.

Perhaps not uplifting material, but it allows for poignant parallels about religious persecution, and the moral choices humans are forced to make in the face of adversity.

Thanks to the soaring score, reminiscent of Les Miserables, the show never gets too bogged down. Peter Polycarpou, Leila Benn Harris, and Simon Gleeson deliver vocally rich and emotionally powerful performances, while Liam Steel’s evocative choreography, use of counterweight, and gestural movement is touchingly conveyed.

Despite the earnest messaging, Imagine This is not without flaws. The book can tend toward into cliche, and though beautifully staged, the technical production sometimes  overpowers the story. Daniel’s opening night request that the audience be forgiving, “we have no sets, our costumes are patchwork, but please when the curtain rises, see more than bare floorboards and hungry actors,” seems incongruous when we are presented with a fully realized musical, complete with moving sets and detailed costumes. It is also hard to stomach comic relief in the form of a campy Christian soldier, Pompey (Michael Matus) whose songs, and eventual crucifixion, feel out of place.

Imagine This was filmed in the final days of its short-lived West End run. It later aired on PBS, and was shortly after released on DVD. The ratio of close-ups to wide shots is satisfying, though the picture quality becomes grainy during darker lighting states. The audio is very clear and the orchestrations and vocals sound great.

Unusually, the DVD has several bonus features, including two cut numbers, a PDF education pack, and a panel held at the Museum of Jewish Heritage for the PBS broadcast. The half-hour discussion moderated by Neal Gabler becomes surprisingly heated and makes a good attempt at covering big issues like the compatibility of survival and resistance, suicide and martyrdom, and the role of art in society.

While critics in 2008 lambasted Imagine This for trivializing the Holocaust, the musical reads rather differently in 2018. It serves as a poignant reminder about the power of art in adversity, and the difficulty of making moral choices when faced with the worst of human kind.

Learn more about Imagine This in the Filmed Live Musicals database.